Flamethrower

by Maggie Estep

  Ruby came to abruptly a half hour later. She’d been dreaming about Ed. He’d been walking down a busy street ahead of Ruby, not waiting for her. She kept trying to catch up with him but never did.

  Ruby went into the bathroom again, splashed more water on her face, then started rooting through the apartment. There were immense closets filled with well-made clothes and shoes. There was a lovely kitchen, an expensive-looking stereo and TV and walls lined with hardcover books. Ruby couldn’t find a computer though. She knew Jody had a laptop, had seen it at The Psychiatrist’s office, so she assumed Jody had taken it with her. Ruby didn’t find anything useful in the desk drawers in the study.

  She went to sit in the dining room and put her face in her hands, trying to empty her mind. She was vaguely expecting some revelation, some sense of her psychiatrist, anything. But no. All she got was a headache and the idea to check with the tenant upstairs.

  A tall, fortyish man with a mustache answered Ruby’s knock.

  “Yeah?” he scowled down at Ruby. He was wearing a black silk robe, and his long hair hung past his shoulders. He looked like a medieval king recently back from conquest.

  “Hi. I’m trying to find Jody Ray,” Ruby said simply.

  “Well she ain’t in here,” he said as though Ruby had just accused him of harboring the fugitive psychiatrist.

  “I was wondering if you’d seen her lately and if she said anything to you. I’m a friend of her husband’s. She’s missing.”

  “Oh,” the guy said, softening. “You want to come in?”

  Ruby had the feeling the guy might eat her for dinner. But maybe he knew something. “Sure, thanks,” she said.

  The apartment was similar to Jody’s, though the ceilings weren’t quite as high and the many windows were covered in heavy curtains. An enormous computer monitor sat on top of a mahogany desk. The screen was filled with dense, tiny strings of text.

  “Code,” the guy said, noticing that Ruby was looking. “I’m a programmer. Name’s Paul, by the way.”

  Ruby told him her name and suddenly felt tongue-tied. Paul was standing a bit too close to her, making her nervous.

  “When was the last time you saw Jody?” she asked.

  “Sit down,” Paul said, motioning to a dark green couch.

  Ruby sat.

  “About a week ago,” Paul said. He was still standing and had folded his arms over his chest. He looked like a prosecutor about to go in for the kill.

  “Saw her leaving the building when I was coming home. She was with some guy. Not the husband. Young guy. You don’t expect me to believe you’re a cop do you?”

  “No,” Ruby shook her head, “just a friend. Did Jody say anything when you saw her?”

  “‘Good morning’ maybe. Some pleasantry like that. It’s not like we were in the habit of having heart to hearts.”

  “What did the young guy look like?”

  Paul frowned. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe mid-twenties. Brown hair. Skinny. Shorter than me. The hair was kind of long. All one length.”

  Now it was Ruby’s turn to frown. The description seemed familiar somehow. Even though she couldn’t think of anyone fitting it.

  “How did she act toward the guy?”

  “I don’t know. The guy was carrying stuff. Maybe suitcases. Yeah, that’s right.” Paul’s face became animated. “I remember I wondered if he was some sort of hired help or if she was running off with him. I haven’t seen the husband in a while.”

  “They’re separated,” Ruby said.

  “Too bad,” Paul said, though he didn’t seem worked up about it. “How about you?”

  “How about me what?”

  “Are you separated?”

  “What?”

  “I mean are you single?”

  “No, I’m not single,” Ruby said more severely than she’d intended.

  “No offense,” Paul said. “Had to take a shot.” He grinned.

  “No offense taken,” Ruby said. “And thanks for your help.” She rose from the couch and made a beeline for the door.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Paul said.

  “No, it’s fine. I just have to go.” She looked up at him. He was cute in a towering-ogre sort of way.

  “Thanks for your help, Paul.”

  “Anytime,” he said.

  Ruby walked into the hall and down the steps two at a time. She got into her car and immediately lit a cigarette. It made her feel worse. She turned the radio on and played with the dial until she hit pay dirt, an Elliott Smith song, “Pictures of Me,” on one of the college stations. Ruby loved the song, even though listening to Elliott Smith always made her angry at the guy for killing himself. When the song ended, Ruby moved the dial over to WKCR Beethoven’s cheerful, pathologically optimistic Sixth. Always a pleasure.

  Ruby took her phone out of her pocket to make sure no one had called. No one had. Ruby called her bank’s automated phone number, punched in her account number, and discovered that Tobias had kept his word. Ruby’s balance was up by a thousand bucks.

  Ruby nosed the car into traffic. She was putting Tobias and Jody on hold and going to Belmont to try talking to Ed again. She had to do it.

  FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Ruby pulled her car into a spot at the end of Ed’s shed row. She popped a Fireball in her mouth and got out of the car.

  Nicky the groom was leading Bend Sinister, an older gray gelding, toward his stall. Nicky nodded at Ruby.

  “Seen Ed?” she asked.

  “Right there.” Nicky pointed to Juan the Bullet’s stall just as Ed emerged from it.

  At first, Ed reacted naturally: He smiled. Then the smile froze, and he looked uncomfortable.

  Ruby had thought words would come easily. Or that maybe that she wouldn’t need words, that Ed would throw his arms around her and the whole unpleasant mess would be history.

  Nicky was watching the whole interaction. Ruby wanted to tell him to take a hike.

  “Can we talk?” Ruby asked Ed in a small voice.

  He stared at her, opened and closed his mouth, then slowly shook his head.

  “I can’t. Not yet. Need more time.” He looked down at his work boots.

  “Please?”

  “Can’t do it. I’m sorry.” He looked at her and, for a moment, was himself. Then he frowned. “Sorry,” he said. He turned and walked away.

  Ruby didn’t have any fight left. She made a face at Nicky, who’d continued to stand there the whole time; then she walked away, making a beeline for Violet’s barn.

  It had rained during the night, and Ruby wasn’t looking where she was going. She walked through a huge puddle, and her red sneakers got muddy. She didn’t care.

  Ruby found the door to Violet’s office open. Henry was at the desk, bent over some paperwork.

  “Can I come in?” Ruby asked.

  “Huh?” Henry looked up, startled. It seemed to take him a few seconds to process who Ruby was and what she wanted.

  “Violet’s not in here,” he said, though this was perfectly obvious.

  “Could I wait for her?”

  “Sure,” Henry said. A vein in his temple started throbbing. “I was just leaving,” he said, getting up from the desk.

  “Please don’t go,” Ruby said.

  “Really, I was leaving anyway,” Henry said, barely meeting her eyes.

  Ruby tried not to take it personally. Henry had the social skills of a parking meter, and Ruby knew he liked her as well as, if not more than, he liked most people. But that didn’t translate into his feeling comfortable with her in a small space.

  Ruby sat down on the couch, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. She thought about The Crone and Victoria the stripper. She briefly imagined taking Jane with her to get a lap dance from Victoria. Jane had once dragged Ruby to a strip club when one of her yoga friends, a slender Finnish girl named Tanya, had been earning her keep getting naked for strangers. Though Tanya had invited Jane to come see the place, she seemed emba
rrassed to be seen there in her skimpy, shimmery outfit. Jane and Ruby hadn’t stayed long.

  “Are you all right?”

  Ruby opened her eyes. She hadn’t heard Violet come in.

  “Sorry for the unexpected visit,” Ruby said.

  “I always expect you to visit.”

  Ruby smiled. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t look well. Are you all right?”

  “Ed still isn’t speaking to me. And I took a job at a game in the amusement park.”

  Violet’s eyes rounded in amazement, and suddenly Ruby didn’t know why she hadn’t called her friend all this time. But Ruby’s instinct was to hide when things got bad, to crawl into a small dark area like a hurt animal.

  “It’s been horrible.”

  “Tell me,” Violet said. She was sitting in her office chair, palms on her thighs, eyes round and earnest.

  Ruby told her.

  “And now I have to take a little road trip to Pennsylvania to look for Jody,” Ruby said after she’d recounted most of it.

  “Can’t you call her?”

  “Doesn’t have a phone there.”

  “Cell?”

  “I’ve been trying her cell. No good. She probably threw it in the river. At least, that’s what The Crone said.”

  “The who?”

  “Millicent. The woman I went to see this morning. Tobias calls her The Crone.”

  “Oh.”

  “She was sort of cronish, but nice enough. And she gave me the address of Jody’s secret place in Pennsylvania.”

  “What secret place? Where in Pennsylvania?”

  “Some tiny town. I haven’t looked at the map yet,” Ruby said.

  Violet was on the verge of asking Ruby something else when Henry came into the office.

  “I know I’m forgetting something,” he told Violet.

  “I’m sure you are.” She smiled at Henry. “We have a filly running.” Violet turned to Ruby. “Henry’s latest folly is that whenever we’ve got one running, he becomes convinced he’s forgotten something and wanders around like a ghost until post time.” She said it affectionately, but Henry looked slightly hurt.

  “I’m not being crazy, woman,” he said, walking out of the office.

  “Which filly is running?” Ruby asked.

  “Half Mad. She’ll be a long shot. But she’s finally started showing a competitive streak in the morning. We’re hoping she might do some running this afternoon.”

  Ruby nodded. Without hope and pathological optimism, horse racing wouldn’t exist. It’s one of the things that made Ruby love it in spite of having reservations over the fates of the sport’s lesser known horses and humans.

  “She’d better run well,” Violet added. “Henry and I need something to go right after losing Fearless Jones.”

  “I know,” Ruby said.

  “Cretins,” Violet said.

  This was about as strong a word as Ruby had ever heard Violet use.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, and probably won’t believe it, but another good one will come along.”

  Violet didn’t look convinced. She changed the subject. “One of my grooms has gone missing,” she said.

  “Oh?” Ruby tried to seem more interested than she actually was as Violet told her how her favorite groom, Elliott, had taken off, leaving a note of apology but no explanation.

  “It’s so unlike him. Elliott was always the most reliable of my boys.”

  Ruby liked the way Violet called the grooms and hotwalkers her “boys,” even when some of them were women.

  “Which one is Elliott?” Ruby asked.

  “White. Young. Longish brown hair. Pretty eyes?” Violet was watching Ruby’s face for signs of recognition.

  Something clicked.

  “Was he friendly with Jody?”

  “Oh yes, very,” Violet smiled. “All my owners liked him.”

  Ruby was thinking of Jody’s tenant Paul and of his description of the young man he’d seen Jody with.

  “Do you think he would have run away with Jody?”

  “Run away with Jody? Of course not. What makes you ask such a question?”

  Ruby told Violet about Paul’s description of Jody’s companion.

  Violet’s mouth opened half an inch. Then closed. Then opened again.

  “Do you think …?” She let the question hang.

  Ruby nodded slightly.

  “Elliott though? He’s so sweet.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is there something I don’t know about Jody?” Violet asked. Her forehead was creased, and her eyes had gotten smaller.

  “There’s apparently a lot we don’t know about her.”

  “Elliott’s a good boy,” Violet said defensively. “He did get kicked out of his girlfriend’s a few weeks ago,” she admitted. “I put him in the little cabin.” She motioned toward the front of the barn, where there were two bungalows. Some trainers used these as offices; others housed their workers there.

  “Can I look around?” Ruby asked.

  “Oh, Ruby, I don’t know. That would be a terrible breach of privacy.”

  “I thought you said he left a note that he wasn’t coming back?”

  “He didn’t say he wasn’t coming back. Just that he had to go off for a while. Some of his things are still in the cabin.”

  Henry appeared in the office doorway once more.

  “Time to go,” he told his wife.

  “Oh.” Violet glanced up at the Belmont Park wall clock that had been a fan giveaway a few summers earlier. “So it is.” She looked from Ruby to Henry and back.

  “I’ll be right there, Henry,” she said.

  In the end, Violet did give Ruby the key to the bungalow door.

  “Don’t disturb anything,” she said.

  “I’ll be very careful,” Ruby said. “Where should I leave the key when I’m done?”

  “You’re not going to come watch Half Mad’s race?” Violet looked aghast. “It’s the finale on closing day, and we’ve got one running. You have to watch.”

  “You’re right,” Ruby said. “It was insane of me to think otherwise.”

  Ruby told Violet she’d find her at the rail in a half hour.

  ELLIOTT’S TWO-ROOM bungalow was dark but tidy. The tiny kitchen area was clean, plastic plates neatly stacked to the side of the sink. The narrow bed was made. A pressed-wood dresser contained a few pairs of socks and some old jeans. There wasn’t a desk or any place where Elliott might have left indications of his whereabouts. All Ruby could tell from standing inside the bleak little bungalow was that its inhabitant had led a spartan existence. A life he was probably willing to abandon without much deliberation.

  Ruby locked the bungalow door behind her then walked the few yards back to the barn. She went to stand in front of the stall Fearless Jones had inhabited. The bedding had been removed, and the hook where his halter had hung was empty. Ruby remembered the day after Fearless Jones had broken his maiden and equaled a track record for five-and-a-half furlongs. Someone from the Daily Racing Form had stopped by to chat with Henry and Violet. When asked what it was like to have a horse with that much potential, Henry had answered: “I guess it’s better than an empty stall.”

  BETTER THAN AN EMPTY STALL had been the headline for the little story in the Form the next day.

  RUBY STOOD IN THE spectator area of the paddock watching Violet and Henry struggling to tack up Half Mad. She was an opinionated filly, and her opinion was that the paddock was filled with too many scary things. Henry had to lead her out of the stall and walk her in a few circles before she finally let him tighten the girth. When the paddock judge called “Riders up,” Henry gave Aaron Gryder a leg up. The filly let out a small buck, nothing serious, just trying to establish that she was in charge. Gryder seemed completely unfazed.

  As the horses headed to the track, Ruby walked into the grandstand and got in line to place a bet before going to meet Violet in her preferred spot at the rail.

&nbs
p; As a stooped old man in the next line leered at Ruby, she glanced at the tote board and saw that Half Mad had climbed to 48—1. Ruby never bet races she hadn’t studied beforehand, but 48—1 on a horse that might have a chance wasn’t something to pass up. She snuck a few glances at the program the guy in front of her was holding. She noticed that the 8—5 morning-line favorite, Loudermilk, a gray who’d caught her eye in the paddock, was hovering at a generous 9—2 while Shake Rag, a horse Ruby had seen run a few weeks earlier, was at a decent 6—1. When Ruby reached the front of the line, she boxed Shake Rag, Loudermilk, and Half Mad in a two-dollar trifecta then put four dollars on Half Mad across the board. The betting clerk, a young girl with limp red hair, wished Ruby luck. Ruby always tried to curb any tendencies toward superstition, but she had noticed that her bets came in approximately 75 percent of the time when the teller wished her luck.

  Ruby went to find Violet at the rail. Her friend was staring out at the track but looked calm, almost serene.

  “There you are,” Violet said as Ruby came to stand next to her.

  Ruby handed Violet the key to Elliott’s bungalow.

  “I didn’t find anything incriminating.”

  “Good,” said Violet.

  “I put four dollars across the board on your filly.”

  “Oh, I think she’ll run second.”

  Ruby didn’t ask Violet why she hadn’t told her this earlier. Violet was prone to what could only be called genuine psychic moments. Ruby had been standing next to Violet once when, a few seconds before a race went off, Violet had calmly informed Ruby that a 93—1 shot was about to win. The horse had paid a hundred eighty-nine dollars to win. Not that it did Ruby any good.

  The bell sounded, and Violet and Ruby watched Half Mad break alertly then find a spot at the rail. The race was a mile and a sixteenth, and Aaron Gryder was neither holding her back nor asking her to run. Both horse and rider seemed content with their position, at the rail with one horse, Shake Rag, ahead of them.

  In its form, it was one of the least dramatic races Ruby had ever seen. Shake Rag stayed in the lead, Half Mad stayed right behind her, and, to Half Mad’s right, Loudermilk and the favorite kept bobbing noses for third. At the wire, it looked to Ruby as if Loudermilk’s nose got there first, but it seemed too improbable. The payout on her trifecta would be close to astronomical.